Silver metallization for advanced interconnects

Author

Manepalli, Rahul ; Stepniak, Frank ; Bidstrup-Allen, Sue Ann ; Kohl, Paul A.

Author_Institution

Sch. of Chem. Eng., Georgia Inst. of Technol., Atlanta, GA, USA

Volume

22

Issue

1

fYear

1999

fDate

2/1/1999 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

4

Lastpage

8

Abstract

Silver metal has the highest room-temperature electrical conductivity of any substance; however, it has found limited acceptance in the electronic industry (e.g., silver filled epoxy) due to the high rate of metal corrosion and migration causing dendrites and electrical failures. With decreasing transistor feature sizes, device-operating voltages have scaled down considerably. In this paper, the reliability of silver and potential benefits of silver metallization are discussed in terms of future trends in microelectronic interconnections. Experimental data supports existing reliability models indicating that electrochemical migration failure modes may not be operative at low voltages. Silver metal corrosion and migration are studied under accelerated test conditions to obtain a qualitative understanding of the failure mechanism

Keywords

corrosion; electromigration; failure analysis; integrated circuit interconnections; integrated circuit metallisation; integrated circuit reliability; silver; Ag; accelerated testing; corrosion; dendrite; electrical conductivity; electrical failure; electrochemical migration; low voltage electronics; microelectronic interconnect; reliability; silver metallization; Conductivity; Corrosion; Electronics industry; Life estimation; Low voltage; Metallization; Microelectronics; Silver; Testing; Transistors;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Advanced Packaging, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1521-3323

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/6040.746536

Filename

746536